Saks Fifth Avenue LLC - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Saks Fifth Avenue LLC is Medium Risk.

Saks Fifth Avenue LLC is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. The company occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Medium Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	High Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue received a score of 25 on the 2025 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a political stakeholder group. The company recruits employees based on sexual identity issues. The company discriminates against vendors that do not promote divisive sex and gender policies, indicating it prioritizes sexual issues over merit (1)(2). However, Saks has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (3).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue likely uses Joindeed as its charitable giving platform. Joindeed vets charities according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate List, which includes mainstream libertarian, conservative, family, and religious advocacy organizations (1)(2)(3).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue requires its employees to take unconscious bias training (1). Saks Fifth Avenue does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (2).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue launched a campaign called “Show Your Pride” in which the company featured stories of members of the LGBTQ community (1)(2). Saks OFF 5th’s CEO, Rob Brooks, signed the “CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion Pledge”, which includes a commitment to promote DEI through bias education training in the workplace (3)(4). The company also established a Diversity Council (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue “continues to support the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, an organization paving the way for the LGBTQ+ community with the goal of eliminating … social intolerance” (1)(2). The company is a Gold Tier corporate sponsor of the Trevor Project, an organization that advocates for controversial sex and gender ideology, including “gender transition” drugs and surgeries for minors, through legislation, litigation, advertising, and PR campaigns. The organization also hosts online chatrooms that allow adults to communicate with minors as young as 13 about sexually explicit topics. Adults in these chatrooms have encouraged minors to adopt transgender identities and withhold this information from their parents (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Additionally, the company contributed $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a hotline for those who identify as LGBTQ (8).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

N/A

Rationale:

Saks Fifth Avenue’s PAC has been defunct since 2014 and the company has not reported on its lobbying at this time (1)(2)(3).